


The Haunting of Cloud Strife

by chibin00b



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997), Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Paranormal, Established Relationship, Established Zack/Cloud, F/F, Ghost Hunters, Ghosts, Implied Sexual Content, Language of Flowers, M/M, POV Multiple, Paranormal Investigators, Past Zack Fair/Aerith Gainsborough, Psychic Abilities, Slow Burn, Slow Burn Aerith/Tifa
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 07:27:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27719515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chibin00b/pseuds/chibin00b
Summary: Aerith Gainsborough is a psychic medium who up to this point has been living her life, selling flowers and helping ghosts. When her ex-boyfriend Zack comes calling with a request to help out a team of paranormal investigators, she gets wrapped up in investigating haunted locations and getting to know Tifa, a member of the team. But not everything is quite as simple as that, as Zack's boyfriend Cloud is dealing with a haunting of his own that just he just can't seem to escape.
Relationships: Aerith Gainsborough/Tifa Lockhart, Zack Fair/Cloud Strife
Kudos: 39





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is the first chapter of what I'm hoping will be an exciting fic. It's been a long time since I've written any fanfiction, so my apologies if I'm still a bit rusty. 
> 
> I don't really have a concrete schedule for when I'll be posting chapters, so updates will probably be sporadic.
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> Update: I've polished this up a bit so it reads better. There is a bit more that I added that won't become relevant until much later.

Aerith

_Could you give her one last rose for me?_

It was that request that had sent me back into the house to grab my shears and gardening gloves. On my way back out the door, Mom called, “Aerith? I thought you left already.”

“I forgot to grab something. I’ll just be a few more minutes and then I’ll head out to see Martha,” I said as I pulled my gloves on and strode out to the garden. I had already finished the floral arrangement I had been working on for Martha, and Rich had always been a good customer, so this was the least I could do for him. Especially given the circumstances.

Passing the patches of lilies and peonies, I headed for the rose bushes and started looking over the petals of each bloom, trying to find the least wilted one. The roses were starting to go out of season, and I had already sold most of the beautiful ones earlier in the year. I wasn’t sure if I would even find one in the color that he had always bought before since red was the most popular color for roses, but I tried to be hopeful as I inspected them.

And then I found it: a bright red rose, its silky petals looking as if it were the peak of the season. Careful to avoid the prickles, I took the stalk in my gloved hand and cut the stem with my shears. I twirled the stem between my thumb and forefinger as I walked back to the house, watching the vibrant petals swirl in mesmerizing circles.

Upon reentering the house, I set the rose down on a paper towel on top of the dining table and went to swap out my shears for the paring knife I kept in the set of drawers I stored some of my flower arranging tools in. Taking a seat at the table, I dethorned the rose, running the blade along the stem until there were only knots where the prickles used to be.

After another snip with a pair of scissors to get the stem to the right length, I placed the rose among the flowers in the floral arrangement’s vase and cleaned up the table for Mom so she didn’t have to before dinner. After shutting the knife and scissors away in the drawer, I set my flower basket in the crook of my elbow, picked up the vase, and headed for the door.

“Okay,” I called to my mom over my shoulder, “I’m heading out for real this time. I’ll be back later.”

Mom stuck her head out of the kitchen and said, “All right, but don’t be too long. Once I’m done with this order, dinner will be ready before you know it. Give Martha my condolences.”

“Okay!”

Clicking the door shut behind me, I headed through the garden, over the bridge, and up the wooden planks toward town. I didn’t have to go far though, just to the retirement home at the end of Petal Lane. My boots kicking up dirt, I walked the short distance and tried not to let the water slosh around in the vase too much.

When I arrived there, I spotted her immediately. She was sitting at a table alone, eyes downcast with her hands folded on the table. Not too far off was a middle-aged couple that I recognized as her son and daughter-in-law talking on the phone. Her gaze flickered toward me as I approached.

“Hi Martha,” I said.

She looked at me with tired eyes and greeted me with a melancholic expression, eyes on the verge of misting over. “Hello, dear.”

“Mom and I are terribly sorry to hear about Rich.”

“Thank you.”

“I know it’s not much, but I brought you some flowers.”

I placed the vase on the table in front of Martha, and her gaze shifted to the flowers. They were purple and white hyacinths—purple for sorrow and white to say I’ll pray for you. She leaned forward and inhaled their fragrance, her expression becoming a little less mournful; the scent of hyacinths was said to help ease feelings of grief.

“They’re lovely,” she said. “Thank you.”

“Also” I began as I plucked the lone rose from among the hyacinths, “I was asked to give you this.”

Upon handing it to her, the corners of her mouth turned up in a sad smile. “Rich used to bring me roses just like this one. I remember he started doing that not too long after you began selling flowers.” Martha’s gaze went distant as she continued to look at the rose, like she was seeing past it to one from another day. A better day.

I recalled her husband buying roses from me when he had gil to spare, and I remembered thinking it was so sweet to still be so in love after all those years. _That must be nice…_ I thought.

“Well, I won’t keep you,” I said, as I saw her son and daughter-in-law coming back over to join us.

“Would you like me to bring some flowers for his grave tomorrow?” I asked. “Free of charge, of course.”

“Oh, that would be fine, thank you.”

I gave my condolences to her family and turned to leave when Martha called, “Aerith, could you bring me one of those yellow lilies tomorrow, as well?”

While yellow lilies were symbols of joy, thankfulness, or even lies depending on the context, around here they were also considered a sign of reunion. And she wanted to tell him that she’d see him again. I suppressed a smile at the sweetness and said, “Of course.”

Giving her and her family my final goodbyes, I headed for the church. I waved to the kids at The Leaf House and was just about to pass one of the alleyways when I saw someone out of the corner of my eye. I turned my head and there was Rich. Well, more like the shade of him at least. All of his features were there, but his form lacked substance, making it almost seem like he wasn’t there.

“Thank you,” he said.

I gave him a subtle nod and smile. He grinned, the same one that he would get on his face as he would make his way back home to his wife after buying a rose.

And in the next blink of my eyes, he was gone.

I continued on my way as though I was a normal person who hadn’t just seen a ghost, but it wasn’t that strange to me, given that I had been able to see them for as long as I could remember. They were just a part of my everyday life. There was never a time when I wasn’t able to see or speak to them.

I hadn’t realized as a child that this wasn’t considered normal, mostly because my birth mother also had the same gift. She had taught me about them, why they were there, how to ease them from this plane to the next, and how to take care of restless spirits in the event that they were causing problems, though I’d learned that from her old journal much later when I could final comprehend what it all meant. It wasn’t until after her passing and my subsequent adoption by Mom that the abnormality of what I could do became apparent to me.

Ghosts really only continued to linger on this side of the veil if they had reasons for sticking around. Sometimes they had unfinished business, but other times they actually still thought they were alive and had a hard time accepting their deaths, especially those that had died suddenly. I did what I could to help them pass on, usually by giving their loved ones a message. Some ghosts were easier to help than others though. And some just didn’t want help at all, which was fine as long as they were peaceful. I had never come across any that weren’t so far, but after reading my mother’s journal I had bought some salt and a lighter after work one day a few years back. I wasn’t sure if I would ever need to use them, but what could it hurt?

The journal also specified the properties of certain flowers. Some worked great as ghost repellent while others grew in response to them. That information provided little help given that, aside from my house and one other location, nothing grew since Midgar was situated in the middle of a desert. It never stopped me from keeping an eye out when I was walking through town though.

After trekking along the sandy paths through the scrapyards on the outskirts of town, I reached Sanctuary Way and the church’s mismatched steeples came into view. I picked up my pace; I had told Mom that I wouldn’t be too long. Reaching the façade, I rushed up the steps and pushed open the large, wooden doors.

Although the building was still standing, the state of the church was in the same sort of disrepair it had been in since I had found the place. It had been that way for a while though. There had been a rocket launch test long ago that failed and crashed into the back rooms. There were no casualties since no service was being held at the time, but no one had gotten around to repairing the building for one reason or another—though that was potentially due to either a lack of funds or no insurance policy. Or that it had just been forgotten, the rest of its deterioration left up to time.

So much of the place had fallen apart since then: the bottom half of one of the decorative pillars had fallen away; the tapestries that hung above the doors in the back frayed at the ends and were in danger of falling; a chandelier had rusted on its chain and had fallen onto one of the pews; the floorboards were all torn up—probably from people needing free, spare (although possibly rotting) lumber; and there was a large hole in the roof, light pouring onto the patch of soil in the floor that I had been using as a flowerbed.

I walked down the nave toward the lilies, my boots thunking against the wooden boards. Setting my gardening-tool-laden basket beside me, I got to work tending to the flowers. It was one of my favorite things to do. There was just something about looking after the flowers that always set me at ease, kind of like how caring for houseplants was therapeutic for people.

At that moment, I saw that the flowerbed was a bit crowded and some of the lilies would need to be harvested. Grabbing my gloves and pair of snips, I started to clear out spaces where the flowers were too close. I was going to either sell or use these for a floral arrangement later, so I gently placed them on a fold of paper I set on the floor as I worked. I was so engrossed in what I was doing that I hadn’t even heard someone come in.

“Thought I’d find you here,” a familiar voice said from behind me.

I whipped around. “Zack?”

And there he was. It had been five years since I’d last heard from him, and he still looked much the same. Same hair, same physique, same face—well, okay, his chin was more chiseled out—and the same big, goofy grin. But there was something off in his eyes, and I couldn’t quite place it.

“Hey, long time, no see,” Zack greeted. “How’ve you been?”

“Oh, I’ve been good. Selling flowers, mostly.”

Zack strode closer. “How’s that been going?”

“Pretty good,” I said, taking off my gardening gloves. “I’ve started taking orders for floral arrangements, too.”

“Nice!”

“What about you? What have you been up to?”

“Oh, you know, just going where the work takes me.”

That was not the response I had been expecting. I had been ready for Zack to launch into a slew of funny stories about what he’d been up to over the past several years, not a vague statement. Zack had never been one to downplay anything—he was an open book and quite a talker; he could go on for hours if uninterrupted. But he wasn’t giving me the entire story, and I was curious as to why. I didn’t press him on it, though; he’d tell me about it in his own time if he thought it was important.

“And Cloud?” I asked. “How are things with him? You guys are still together, right?”

His face lit back up again, just like it used to whenever he started talking about Cloud when Zack and I were dating. “Yeah, he’s good. We actually just got moved into an apartment in Sector 7.”

“What, really? Aw, you should’ve brought him with you. I didn’t get to meet him before you guys left for that trip.”

“He’s actually working right now. But you’ll get to meet him real soon, promise.”

“Good,” I said. “So, what brings you guys all the way back here after all this time?”

“Work. Thought we’d come back to Midgar and start job-hunting, but we ran into a friend of Cloud’s who said she had some work for us.”

“What sort of job are you guys doing right now?”

“Well…” Zack said, giving me a conspiratorial look, “we’re working as film crew for a group of paranormal investigators.”

“Really?” That piqued my interest. “I didn’t think you were into all that stuff.”

“Well, it’s a job that pays the bills.” He scratched the back of his head before clearing his throat. “Speaking of which…I stopped by to see if we could get your help with the investigation we’re going to be doing within the next few days.”

“My help…” I understood immediately what he meant.

“Yeah, the team wanted to have a medium with us on the investigation, and I told them I knew someone, so…”

“Yeah, sure, I’ll help,” I responded, seeing no reason why I should say no. Zack was an old friend, and it wasn’t like him to approach someone for help if the motivations behind it weren’t good, or at the very least honest. Besides, it sounded like an interesting way to meet some new people who wouldn’t think I was completely out there when I told them I was a psychic medium, and gods knew I could use a new friend or two.

“Okay, cool,” he said, pulling out a business card and pen out of his back pocket. He scribbled out the address and handed me the card. “Stop by this address tomorrow and the lead investigator will give you the details.”

“Okay,” I said, flipping the business card over between my fingers. “I have some work to do in the morning, so I’ll drop by in the afternoon if that’s okay.”

“That works. Well, I'm going to head back. I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Yep!”

I waved as he strode out the door into the blinding light of the sunlamps. Once the doors creaked closed behind him, I looked at the business card in my hands. One side read Sector 7 Paranormal Investigators, along with some contact information for a Barret Wallace. On the other side was the address for a place called the Seventh Heaven Bar somewhere in Sector 7. I’d never heard of the place, but I was sure I’d find it.

I finished up with the tending, and as I was putting everything back in my basket I thought about what Zack had told me.

_Wonder where they’ll be investigating…and why having a medium along is so important…_

That’s when the whispers started. It was soft at first, and I thought it might be people outside—the sound frantic, like someone was seriously hurt, but the voices died down as I got closer to the door. Turning back around, I approached the flowerbed, and the voices intensified and turned into a wild buzzing hum like flies.

I gulped and slowly knelt down beside the lilies and leaned in closer, trying to catch the words. The flowers hissed, “Something wicked this way comes.”

A chill ran up my spine to the base of my skull, and I shivered, wrapping my arms around myself as I stood back up. I saw a shadow flicker out of the corner of my eye from behind one of the pillars. I didn’t stick around to see what it was, just grabbed my basket and booked it back out into the light, letting the doors slam shut behind me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Meanings and properties for the hyacinths and lilies are from The Complete Language of Flowers: A Definitive and Illustrated History by S. Theresa Dietz.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zack shares some good news, gets some bad news, and he and Cloud have a talk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's chapter 2! I wasn't sure if I would have this up before the end of the year, but it's done!
> 
> Thank you for all the kudos chapter 1 received. I'm glad people are enjoying it.
> 
> Happy reading!

Zack

_Well, that was easy_ , I thought as I headed for the train station. I hadn’t really expected there to be any difficulty with work today except maybe in finding her, but no, Aerith had been exactly where I thought she would be. I supposed that calling or texting Aerith would have been more ideal, but I’d lost her number when my phone got broken several years back, so I’d resorted to checking her favorite place, and hey, I couldn’t argue with results.

And she had agreed to help out, so I could report back to Barret that we had a medium for the next investigation. He’d been considering some of the ones he’d found online, but those with good reviews were booked up with appointments, leaving the mediocre ones as the only options available. When I’d told him I knew someone who could potentially assist us on such short notice, he’d jumped at the chance and told me to go find her.

 _Who knows if she’ll still want to help after Barret gives her all the details_ , said a niggling voice at the back of my head, but that seemed unlikely; Aerith could be awfully stubborn when she set her mind on something.

The train just pulled in as I reached the station. I boarded it and shut my eyes as I took a seat. The ride wasn’t long, but I reckoned it couldn’t hurt to rest my eyes for a bit, and I was _so_ tired. A good night’s sleep was going to be hard to come by once the investigations were under way, so it wasn’t a bad idea to try and fit in sleep whenever I could. Cloud and I knew what we were signing ourselves up for when we took the job, and Cloud had a difficult time sleeping as it was, so he didn’t have an issue with the idea of working well into the morning. I personally preferred the idea of our work schedules lining up so we could spend time together in our off-hours, so I was going to learn to live with it. Besides, if we found working a graveyard shift ultimately wasn’t for us, we could find new jobs and quit, obviously, but that wasn’t exactly an option at that moment.

When the train reached the station, I got out and headed through the busy lanes toward Seventh Heaven to meet up with Barret and the others. And Cloud. I felt the grin spread across my face as I thought about seeing him, even though I just saw him this morning. We’d been together for so long now that it was impossible to think of my life without him. I just needed to find the right moment to propose to him at this point.

I’d had the ring—a simple, silver band—for a while now; I’d bought it with the last of my savings while we were working for a project at Gold Saucer. I kept it hidden in my duffel bag that I used for traveling folded up in a pair of old socks at the back of our closet since I doubted Cloud would go looking through it for anything. We probably weren’t going to be traveling soon, either.

I’d hoped to ask him to marry me sooner, but so much had been going on lately, what with the move and settling back into town, that it had never seemed like a good time. Hopefully, now that we had work and a place to stay—all thanks to his friend Tifa—I could find the perfect chance, beautiful scenery and all.

Reaching Seventh Heaven and climbing the front steps to the double doors, I hoped they would be back from shooting B-roll footage already, but no such luck. The bar was empty aside from Barret’s four-year-old daughter Marlene seated on a stool at the bar and Tifa behind the counter, cleaning glasses. I sagged a bit and took a seat at the bar next to Marlene.

“Hi, Zack!” Marlene chirped.

“Hey, Marlene,” I said, plastering a smile on my face. “Whatcha up to?”

“Drawing,” she said, rubbing a nubby crayon into the paper.

I peered down at the sheet and saw a very familiar shape. “Is that a house?”

“Yeah.” She held the picture up for me to see. It looked like a simple, two-story house with a red roof and a white door with a couple of windows. She was coloring the exterior in, staying inside the black lines she’d drawn.

“It’s very good,” I said, causing Marlene to beam before she grabbed another crayon.

“Hey, Zack,” Tifa said, putting away a glass. “How’d it go?”

“Fine,” I said, trying to keep the fatigue from my voice. “She said she’d stop by for a meeting tomorrow to go over the details.”

“Great! Barret'll be happy to hear that. Think she'll be up for it?”

“Yeah, maybe...Hey, when did Barret say they’d be back?” I asked. I wasn’t really going for subtlety, and I knew Tifa could tell I was waiting for Cloud to get back.

Tifa checked her phone for the time. “Soon, probably. They wanted to get all the day shots they needed before lights out.” I hummed in understanding and leaned on the counter with my chin resting in the palm of my hand, considering the idea of throwing some darts until they got back. Tifa leaned on the counter with her elbows and asked, “Can I get you anything while you wait?”

I was pretty hungry, but I wanted to wait, so I could have dinner with Cloud later. I ran the past couple of dinners we had through my head; I wanted to order something different for dinner since it seemed like we’d been eating the same three meals for dinner for the past two weeks. I responded with “Nah, but if you could make up some wings and fries for Cloud and I when they get back, that’d be great.”

“Sure, I’ll start getting them ready,” she said, crossing to the food prep station behind the counter and taking chicken wings out of the fridge. “I need to get the food prep started for tonight anyway.”

“Thanks.”

Wondering how Tifa had two jobs and still managed to retain so much energy, I turned my attention to the TV mounted behind the bar. The local news was just coming back from a commercial for Shin-Ra’s popular television series _Keeping Up with the Shin-Ras_ —a show that was nothing but the overdramatized and scripted life and times of President Shin-Ra, his son Rufus, and the various people in their lives—to cover a few different stories: _LOVELESS_ ’s new musical starring none other than Genesis Rhapsodos (no surprises there; he’d left Shin-Ra for the theater a long time ago); the current standings for chocobo racing jockeys; the weather above the plate; and the disappearance of a local woman. She was a pretty brunette and the sixth woman to have gone missing within the last few months. The police had yet to identify new suspects for any of the cases.

As the news anchor began a segment on the mayoral elections that were coming up, the doors to the bar swung open, and in walked Barret trailed by Jessie, Biggs, Wedge, and Cloud, who happened to look absolutely bored. I waved to Cloud, his face brightening a bit into a smile when he saw me, as Barret made a beeline for Marlene.

“Daddy!” Marlene cheered as Barret picked her up in his arms.

“Hi, sweetheart. You been good for Tifa while I’ve been gone?” Barret asked, and Marlene nodded, wrapping her tiny arms around his neck in a hug. “Well, I still got some work to do, so you keep being a good girl, okay?”

“Okay.”

Barret set Marlene back down on her stool and turned to me. “Zack, can I talk to you for a bit?” he asked, motioning with his head toward the basement.

“Yeah, sure,” I said, wondering what he needed to talk to me about.

Cloud sat down in the seat next to mine as I got up to follow Barret. I ruffled his hair, earning a mock-pout from him, as I headed to the basement with him.

We took the lift down and got to what was essentially the team’s headquarters. The first time I saw it, I had to do a double take because I was so surprised that they actually operated out of here. It was a room about as big as the bar area with a wall of computers and monitors for editing the footage and audio and a big table in the center for meetings. Opposite the computers was a white board with our next investigation site and some filing cabinets. Over in the corner was a makeshift recording area that Barret used for making voice overs to go along with the footage.

“So, what’s up?” I asked.

Barret took a seat at the table and gestured for me to take the seat across from him. “Well,” he began with an agitated sigh, “it’s about Cloud.”

“What about him?” I asked as I sat down, trying not to sound as though I was about to get defensive over my boyfriend.

Barret massaged his forehead with the tips of his fingers, like he had a migraine. “Look, Zack,” he said, “I know this is gonna sound unprofessional, but I have a feeling that Cloud’s going to take what I’m about to say a lot better coming from you or Tifa.

“And this has nothing to do with the quality of his work. It’s great. Kid knows how to block and set up a good shot. And, honestly, Tifa’s recommendation for the two of you made him sound like a great pick.”

“Then what’s wrong?”

“Alright, I’m gonna get right to the point.” He paused and let out an aggravated sigh. “He’s been acting like nothing but a punk ass since we hired the two of you. And, as you can guess, it hasn’t exactly been great for morale.”

I hung my head and stared down at the table. I couldn’t refute that that wasn’t like him because, well…that actually tracked. Cloud had a bit of a hard time working well with others for one reason or another. Sometimes it was understandable if the person he was having issues with was an ass, but other times he was the one causing problems with his behavior.

“Now, Zack,” Barret continued, “I like you, and I know you guys need the money, but if he can’t fix that attitude of his, I’m going to have to let him go.”

Now it was my turn to sigh. “I’m so sorry,” I said, burying my face in my hands. “I’ll talk to him.”

“Thank you.” Barret got up and started going through one of the filing cabinets lining the wall and started gathering up papers. “So, how’d things with your friend go?”

“She said she’d be willing to work with us. She’s going to stop by tomorrow afternoon.”

“Hell yeah,” he said, pumping his metal fist in the air. “And she’s the real deal? None of that theatrical shit?”

“Yeah. Trust me, I wouldn’t have considered her for the job if I didn’t actually know she could do it.”

Barret sat down at the table and started sorting the papers. “Did you tell her she’s going to be on camera?”

“Well, no...But I did tell her I was part of the film crew, so I figured she would assume that.”

Barret hummed, rubbing the top of his head. “Well, if she doesn’t consent to her likeness being on camera, we’ll have to blur out her face and potentially disguise her voice in post. But we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it tomorrow.”

“Sorry,” I apologized, scratching the back of my head. “Should’ve thought about that.” Especially because Aerith didn’t exactly advertise that particular specialty of hers.

“It’s fine,” he replied, placing the papers in a folder. It was probably filled with a nondisclosure agreement, a liability waiver, and whatever other paperwork Aerith would be asked to sign before coming on the investigation. “We’ll talk it out with her tomorrow.”

“Anything else you need from me before I head out?”

“Nope, that’s it. You have a good night.”

“Night,” I responded and headed back to the first floor.

I reentered the bar to see Jessie had joined Tifa behind the bar—she also worked here part-time--and was chatting up Cloud, who looked so disinterested it would have been an almost funny scene if he wasn’t my boyfriend. I cleared my throat and called to him, “Ready to go, babe?”

“Yep,” Cloud responded, sliding off his stool and sauntering over to me.

I wrapped an arm around him as I went over to the counter and picked up the wings Tifa had waiting for us. “Thanks.”

“Yeah, no problem,” she said, taking the gil I handed to her. “See you guys tomorrow.”

“Bye!” Jessie trilled as we headed out the doors, causing Cloud to roll his eyes in annoyance and sidle deeper into my side. We didn’t get very far when I noticed the miffed look on Cloud’s face, his glower causing the people around us to give us a wider berth than necessary.

Though I guessed what was on his mind, I still asked, “You okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“Cloud.”

Cloud let out a slightly irritated groan. “It’s just Jessie and the flirting.” Flirting? What flirting? There had been _more_ than what I just saw? Cloud continued, “Mostly, it’s easy to brush off, and I can tell that she’s just kidding usually, but sometimes she’s just too much.”

“Have you tried telling her that?” I couldn’t exactly blame Jessie for being attracted to him—I mean, Cloud was _gorgeous_. If he were taller, he’d be working in front of a camera instead of behind one, but he preferred it that way since he wasn’t a big fan of seeing himself on screen to begin with.

“Well, no…”

“It couldn’t hurt to try,” I said, adjusting the bag of food as we climbed the stairs of our apartment building. “Who knows, maybe my natural flirtatiousness makes it seem like we’re in an open relationship or something,” I suggested, wiggling my eyebrows.

Cloud scoffed, fishing the key out of his pocket. “Yeah, maybe. I remember you were a lot worse than her when we first met.”

“Who, me?” I responded in mock-hurt. Admittedly, he wasn’t wrong. I had been quite a flirt as a teenager in boarding school.

“Yes,” Cloud said, unlocking the door to our tiny studio apartment. “We had one conversation, and then every single time I ran into you after that always ended with you asking me out to dinner.”

“Well, did it work?”

“Oh my gods,” Cloud said, shaking his head. I chuckled and placed a peck on his cheek as we entered the apartment.

The place could only be described as small. A small room with a single bed, a tiny sink, a small bathroom, and one closet. We’d added a few things to the space like a lamp, mini-fridge, and microwave for function, and thankfully it hadn’t started to get cramped. A lot of our personal items and spare clothes were kept in a trunk at the foot of the bed, which also doubled as a makeshift table.

Cloud pulled the trunk into the middle of the floor and started going through the mini-fridge for drinks. I placed the food down on the trunk, but took a seat on the bed instead. I figured we should get this out of the way first.

“Wait,” I said firmly, and Cloud looked over at me, confused. I patted the space beside me on the bed. “We got to talk first.”

“About what?” he asked, sitting down next to me.

Turning to face him, I pulled my legs onto the bed and crossed them as I racked my brain for how to phrase this without coming off accusatory. “Is everything okay? I know Jessie has been bothering you a bit, but is there anything else going on at work that I’m not aware of that’s giving you issues?”

“No? Why do you ask?” Cloud asked, crossing his arms.

“Well…” I tried to phrase this next part carefully, “Barret told me that you haven’t exactly been great to work with all the time”—at this Cloud rolled his eyes—“and I’m just trying to figure out what’s wrong.”

Cloud let out an exasperated sigh. “Zack, we’re working for amateur ‘ghost hunters,’” he said, doing air-quotes with his fingers, his brows pinching together in irritation. “I mean, not even Tifa, who got us these jobs, is all that sure about what they’re doing. Because, in all the investigations that they’ve already done, they haven’t found anything concrete. How am I supposed to take any of this seriously when it’s all crap pseudo-science?”

I got where he was coming from. It was hard to put energy into something so uncertain, but belief had never been part of our jobs descriptions. I sighed. “Cloud, it doesn’t matter if you believe it or not, our job is to film and help with production.”

Cloud rolled his eyes and folded his arms, and I grabbed him by the shoulders. “Cloud, look at me,” I said, but he ignored me, clearly wanting this conversation to be over. “Hey. Look at me.”

Cloud fixed his glare on me. _Gods, he’s so stubborn sometimes_ , I thought.

“Cloud. I know you don’t buy any of it, but Barret is going to fire you if you don’t knock it off. And we can’t afford for you to be out of work right now.” His expression cracked a bit, and I knew that he knew I had a point. “Could just try not to let your hang ups about this get in the way of work?”

“Zack…”

“Please?” I asked, cupping his face in my hands, and hit him with my best pair of puppy eyes.

Cloud made an oh-gods-not-again face and covered my eyes with his hands. “Okay, okay, I’ll try! Just stop with the face.”

_Works every time._

“Good,” I said and leaned forward, my lips meeting his even with my eyes still covered. I released his face and grabbed his wrists, peeling his hands off of my eyes. I tried, and failed, to stifle a laugh when I saw the pout on his face, a wheezy chuckle escaping my throat.

“What?” he asked, shooting me a glare.

“Nothing,” I said, kissing his forehead. “You’re just cute is all.”

Cloud’s cheeks became tinted pink and his pout deepened, like they usually did when I said things like that. “Oh yeah?” he challenged.

I barely had time to think before he took two fistfuls of the front of my shirt and yanked me down for a kiss. My surprise didn’t last long as I smiled against his soft lips and deepened the kiss. Letting go of his wrists, I wrapped my arms around him, twining my fingers in his hair and snaking the other around his waist.

I lay down and pulled Cloud on top of me as his lips left mine and started leaving a trail down my neck. _Yep_ , I thought, _still cute._

* * *

It wasn’t until much later that we remembered the wings we had left to get cold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> My apologies if this feels a bit slow-paced, but I have a good bit of set up to do before we actually get fully into the plot. Terribly sorry. I hope you guys who are enjoying this so far will bear with me.
> 
> The next chapter will be told from Tifa's perspective, so we'll get to see more of the AVALANCHE crew.
> 
> Thanks again!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


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